Identity

Good-bye, my song--I, who found words for sorrow,
Offer my joy to-day a useless lute.
In the deep night I sang me of the morrow;
The sun is on my face and I am mute.

Good-bye, my song, in you was all my yearning,
The prayer for this poor heart I wore so long.
Now love heaps roses where the wounds were burning;
What need have I for song?

Long since I sang of all one loves and misses;
How may I sing to-day who know no wrong?
My lips are all for laughter and for kisses.
Good-bye, my song.

Well may you sit within, and, fond of grief,
Look in each other's face, and melt in tears.
Well may you shun all counsel, all relief.
Oh she was great in mind, tho' young in years!

Chang'd is that lovely countenance, which shed
Light when she spoke; and kindled sweet surprise,
As o'er her frame each warm emotion spread,
Play'd round her lips, and sparkled in her eyes.

Those lips so pure, that mov'd but to persuade,
Still to the last enliven'd and endear'd.
Those eyes at once her secret soul convey'd,
And ever beam'd delight when you appear'd.

Yet has she fled the life of bliss below,
That youthful Hope in bright perspective drew?
False were the tints! false as the feverish glow
That o'er her burning cheek Distemper threw!

And now in joy...

Air--Grádh mo chroidhe.


I.

Sweet thoughts, bright dreams, my comfort be,
All comfort else has flown;
For every hope was false to me,
And here I am, alone.
What thoughts were mine in early youth!
Like some old Irish song,
Brimful of love, and life, and truth,
My spirit gushed along.


II.

I hoped to right my native isle,
I hoped a soldier's fame,
I hoped to rest in woman's smile
And win a minstrel's name--
Oh! little have I served my land,
No laurels press my brow,
I have no woman's heart or hand,
Nor minstrel honours now.


III.

But fancy has a magic power,
It brings me wreath and crown,
And woman's love, the self-same hour
It smites oppression down.
Sweet thoughts...

Pure faced page! waiting so long
To welcome my muse and me;
Fold to thy breast, like a mother, the song
That floats from my spirit to thee.

And song! sound soft as the streamlet sings,
And sweet as the Summer's birds,
And pure and bright and white be the wings
That will waft thee into words.

Yea! fly as the sea-birds fly over the sea
To rest on the far-off beach,
And breathe forth the message I trust to thee,
Tear toned on the shores of speech.

But ere you go, dip your snowy wing
In a wave of my spirit's deep --
In a wave that is purest -- then haste and bring
A song to the hearts that weep.

Oh! bring it, and sing it -- its notes are tears;
Its octaves, the octaves of grief;
Who knows but its tones in the far-off years
Ma...

Songs are like painted window-panes!
In darkness wrapp'd the church remains,
If from the market-place we view it;
Thus sees the ignoramus through it.
No wonder that he deems it tame,
And all his life 'twill be the same.

But let us now inside repair,
And greet the holy Chapel there!
At once the whole seems clear and bright,
Each ornament is bathed in light,
And fraught with meaning to the sight.
God's children! thus your fortune prize,
Be edified, and feast your eyes!

Love, we have heard together
    The North Sea sing his tune,
And felt the wind's wild feather
    Brush past our cheeks at noon,
And seen the cloudy weather
    Made wondrous with the moon.

Where loveliness is rarest,
    'Tis also prized the most:
The moonlight shone her fairest
    Along that level coast
Where sands and dunes the barest,
    Of beauty seldom boast,

Far from that bleak and rude land
    An exile I remain
Fixed in a fair and good land,
    A valley and a plain
Rich in fat fields and woodland,
    And watered well with rain.

Last night the full moon's splendour
    Shone down on Taunton Dene,
And pasture fresh and tender,
    And coppice dusky green,
The heavenly light did render
    In one ...

He said:

"In the winter dusk
When the pavements were gleaming with rain,
I walked thru a dingy street
Hurried, harassed,
Thinking of all my problems that never are solved.
Suddenly out of the mist, a flaring gas-jet
Shone from a huddled shop.
I saw thru the bleary window
A mass of playthings:
False-faces hung on strings,
Valentines, paper and tinsel,
Tops of scarlet and green,
Candy, marbles, jacks
A confusion of color
Pathetically gaudy and cheap.
All of my boyhood
Rushed back.
Once more these things were treasures
Wildly desired.
With covetous eyes I looked again at the marbles,
The precious agates, the pee-wees, the chinies
Then I passed on.

In the winter dusk,
The pavements were gleaming with rain;
T...

[1]


Silence is in our festal halls,--
    Sweet Son of Song! thy course is o'er;
In vain on thee sad Erin calls,
    Her minstrel's voice responds no more;--
All silent as the Eolian shell
    Sleeps at the close of some bright day,
When the sweet breeze that waked its swell
    At sunny morn hath died away.

Yet at our feasts thy spirit long
    Awakened by music's spell shall rise;
For, name so linked with deathless song
    Partakes its charm and never dies:
And even within the holy fane
    When music wafts the soul to heaven,
One thought to him whose earliest strain
    Was echoed there shall long be given.

But, where is now the cheerful day.
    The social night when by thy side
He who now weaves this part...

The dinner-bell, the dinner-bell
Is ringing loud and clear;
Through hill and plain, through street and lane,
It echoes far and near;
From curtained hall and whitewashed stall,
Wherever men can hide,
Like bursting waves from ocean caves,
They float upon the tide.

I smell the smell of roasted meat!
I hear the hissing fry
The beggars know where they can go,
But where, oh where shall I?
At twelve o'clock men took my hand,
At two they only stare,
And eye me with a fearful look,
As if I were a bear!

The poet lays his laurels down,
And hastens to his greens;
The happy tailor quits his goose,
To riot on his beans;
The weary cobbler snaps his thread,
The printer leaves his pi;
His very devil hath a home,
But what, oh what ...

The song that is last of the many
Whose music is full of thy name,
Is weaker, O father! than any,
Is fainter than flickering flame.
But far in the folds of the mountains
Whose bases are hoary with sea,
By lone immemorial fountains
This singer is mourning for thee.

Because thou wert chief and a giant
With those who fought on for the right
A hero determined, defiant;
As flame was the sleep of thy might.
Like Stephen in days that are olden,
Thy lot with a rabble was cast,
But seasons came on that were golden,
And Peace was thy mother at last.

I knew of thy fierce tribulation,
Thou wert ever the same in my thought
The father and friend of a nation
Through good and through evil report.
At Ephesus, fighting in fetters,
Paul drove...

At a lonely cross where bye-roads met
I sat upon a gate;
I saw the sun decline and set,
And still was fain to wait.

A trotting boy passed up the way
And roused me from my thought;
I called to him, and showed where lay
A spot I shyly sought.

"A summer-house fair stands hidden where
You see the moonlight thrown;
Go, tell me if within it there
A lady sits alone."

He half demurred, but took the track,
And silence held the scene;
I saw his figure rambling back;
I asked him if he had been.

"I went just where you said, but found
No summer-house was there:
Beyond the slope 'tis all bare ground;
Nothing stands anywhere.

"A man asked what my brains were worth;
The house, he said, grew rotten,
And was pulled dow...

    I saw wild domes and bowers
    And smoking incense towers
    And mad exotic flowers
    In Illinois.
    Where ragged ditches ran
    Now springs of Heaven began
    Celestial drink for man
    In Illinois.

    There stood beside the town
    Beneath its incense-crown
    An angel and a clown
    In Illinois.
    He was as Clowns are:
    She was snow and star
    With eyes that looked afar
    In Illinois.

    I asked, "How came this place
    Of antique Asian grace
    Amid our callow race
    In Illinois?"
    Said Clown and Angel fair:
    "By laughter and by prayer,
    By casting off all care
    In Illinois."

How beautiful, how beautiful,
    Beneath the morning sky,
In bridal veil of snowy mist,
    These dreamy headlands lie!
How beautiful, in soft repose,
    Upon the water's breast,
Steeped in the sunlight's golden calm,
    These fairy islets rest!

A Sabbath hush enfolds the hills,
    And broods upon the deep
Whose music every hollow fills,
    And climbs each rocky steep,
Now low and soft like love's own sigh,
    Now faint and far away,
Now plaining to the answering pines,
    With melancholy lay.

Like white-winged birds, through azure depths,
    Above the restless tide,
With snowy plume and golden crest,
    The fleecy cloudlets glide;
Their dancing shadows fleck the deep,
    Or flit above the green
Of emerald is...

Lasso, ch' i' ardo, ed altri non mel crede!

POSTERITY WILL ACCORD TO HIM THE PITY WHICH LAURA REFUSES.


    Alas, with ardour past belief I glow!
None doubt this truth, except one only fair,
Who all excels, for whom alone I care;
She plainly sees, yet disbelieves my woe.
O rich in charms, but poor in faith! canst thou
Look in these eyes, nor read my whole heart there?
Were I not fated by my baleful star,
For me from pity's fount might favour flow.
My flame, of which thou tak'st so little heed,
And thy high praises pour'd through all my song,
O'er many a breast may future influence spread:
These, my sweet fair, so warns prophetic thought,
Closed thy bright eye, and mute thy poet's tongue,
E'en after death shall still with sparks be fraught.

There is nothing that eases my heart so much
As the wind that blows from the purple hills;
'Tis a hand of balsam whose healing touch
Unburdens my bosom of ills.

There is nothing that causes my soul to rejoice
Like the sunset flaming without a flaw:
'Tis a burning bush whence God's own voice
Addresses my spirit with awe.

There is nothing that hallows my mind, meseems,
Like the night with its moon and its stars above;
'Tis a mystical lily whose golden gleams
Fulfill my being with love.

There is nothing, no, nothing, we see and feel,
That speaks to our souls some beautiful thought,
That was not created to help us, and heal
Our lives that are overwrought.

Though bleak these woods and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strewn,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan,

There is a friendly roof I know
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.

And so, though still where'er I roam
Cold stranger glances meet my eye,
Though when my spirit sinks in woe
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh,

Though solitude endured too long
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue
And overclouds my noon of day,

When kindly thoughts that would have way
Flow back discouraged to my breast
I know there is, though far away
A home where heart and soul may rest.

War...

I took her dainty eyes, as well
As silken tendrils of her hair:
And so I made a Villanelle!

I took her voice, a silver bell,
As clear as song, as soft as prayer;
I took her dainty eyes as well.

It may be, said I, who can tell,
These things shall be my less despair?
And so I made a Villanelle!

I took her whiteness virginal
And from her cheek two roses rare:
I took her dainty eyes as well.

I said: "It may be possible
Her image from my heart to tear!"
And so I made a Villanelle.

I stole her laugh, most musical:
I wrought it in with artful care;
I took her dainty eyes as well;
And so I made a Villanelle.

When you were there, and you, and you,
Happiness crowned the night; I too,
Laughing and looking, one of all,
I watched the quivering lamplight fall
On plate and flowers and pouring tea
And cup and cloth; and they and we
Flung all the dancing moments by
With jest and glitter. Lip and eye
Flashed on the glory, shone and cried,
Improvident, unmemoried;
And fitfully and like a flame
The light of laughter went and came.
Proud in their careless transience moved
The changing faces that I loved.

Till suddenly, and otherwhence,
I looked upon your innocence.
For lifted clear and still and strange
From the dark woven flow of change
Under a vast and starless sky
I saw the immortal moment lie.
One instant I, an instant, knew
As God knows all....